The Mundaka Upanishad : Post-10. Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday, July 09, 2022. 08:28

Chapter-1, Section-2, Mantram-1.

POST-10.

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MANTRAM-1. A LOOK AT THE RITUALS :

"Tad etat satyam mantresu karmani kavayo 

yany-apaśyam-stani tretayam bahudha santatani, 

tanya-caratha niyatam satyakama 

esa vah panthah sukrtasya loke." (1.2.1.).

This is a different subject altogether. A mantra in the earlier mantras told us that there are two types of knowledge, the lower and the higher. 

Rg-vedo yajur-vedaḥ sāma-vedo'tharva-vedaḥ śikṣā kalpo vyākaraṇaṁ (1.1.5): 

The Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda and Atharvaveda are all lower knowledge. Higher knowledge is that great spiritual insight by which we come into direct contact with the Imperishable. This was told to us in earlier verses. Now some details are given as to what lower knowledge is.

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The mantras of the Veda are utilised in the performance of sacrifices, or yajnas. This is the secondary character of the Veda mantras. Veda mantras can be used as prayers to the Almighty God or as prayers to the divinities inhabiting heaven. That is one form of the utilisation of the mantras. But the major aspect of the mantras is their utility in the performance of yajnas.

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This is true: tad etat satyam. 

Whatever suggestion for the performance of action as sacrifice, or yajna, was visualised by the great sages in the mantras of the Veda, that vision has to be considered as true. That is to say, the Vedic sacrifices are not just concoctions of the mind or someone's whim and fancy. There is a truth in it. The rituals that we perform in our religious worships are not unnecessary things, as some modern intellectuals may sometimes tell us. The entire body and mind gesticulates. It is not merely the body; even the mind puts on a gesture, an attitude, when a ritual is performed. This point is missed by critics. When the mind and the body are in a state of unison in the performance of a ritual, the prayer assumes a physical shape. The mantras are prayers. The Vedic mantras are hymns offered to God, and the implementation, or actual practice of this prayer, is the ritual thereof. The ritual can be worship as we do in temples, for instance, or it can be an actual homa or yajna, sacrifice. These suggestions of actual action proceeding from the mantras in the form of ritual are true. It is not untrue, says the mantra: tad etat satyam.

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mantresu karmani kavayo 
yany-apaśyam-stani tretayam bahudha santatani, 

Treta means the three Vedas. In the three Vedas—Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda—we will find every mantra is a potential for action. The Mimamsa Shastra is very vigorous in the affirmation of mantras being just instruments in the performance of external sacrifice. Knowledge is the medium for action. After we know something, we do something. We do not merely know something and keep quiet. So shodhana, or incentive for action, is the potential of every mantra. This is the Mimamsa Shastra, and we are mentioning it in this particular verse. Therefore, the three Vedas are incentives for the performance of further action in the form of ritual and yajna. Treta means three Vedas, and it also means the Treta Yuga. There are four yugas: Krita Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga and Kali Yuga. We are in Kali Yuga, the last of the yugas.

To be continued .....

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